Dr. Jetelina: Laughter, measles, the firing of the CDC cruise team, a cause for autism by September (?) and The Last of Us
Katelyn Jetelina, PhD publishes terrific public health updates and commentary. Here are the top story lines and a link to her latest post.
Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH is an epidemiologist and public health advocate with a passion for making science accessible—readable and easily put into action. She has a master’s degree in public health and a doctorate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and serves as a scientific consultant to organizations like the CDC. By day she’s an epidemiologist, data scientist, consultant, and wife, and mom to two adventurous little girls. By night (and occasionally nap time), she is the founder and writer of Your Local Epidemiologist, a Substack with readers in all 50 states and 126 countries.
Here are her top story lines from her April 14 update.
Her first live show sold out a comedy club (!) in New York. She has some great links from that, including her stickers and public health cocktails.
Except in the northeast, a particularly ugly flu season is finally ending. At least 188 children died; full data are still being analyzed.
There’s a new highly contagious Norovirus strain that is causing a high number of cases with “10 cruise ship outbreaks in 2025 thus far. Unfortunately, the new administration fired the full-time CDC cruise ship inspectors for norovirus. The team was in the middle of responding to two outbreaks when they were let go.
Click for a separate deep dive from Dr. Jetelina on Norovirus.
The short version on measles; get details in the full update: “The U.S. now has 739 measles cases—more than any year in the past 15—and outbreaks are spreading across multiple states. Five states now have more than 10 cases, a rare and concerning development.” And another adult has died of complications of measles, bringing the total to an unbelievable four deaths—the most any year in this century— from this completely preventable disease. (I’ve done a quick search and can’t find any year in this century that we’ve had more than two measles deaths in one year; I’ll post the question to Dr. Jetelina to see what she says.)
RFK’s promise that we’ll have the cause of autism by September. “Let’s talk,” says Dr. Jetelina. See her post for why. (My version is he’s put the right people and processes in place to have what we call “happy ending research”—the answer he wants, possibly directed from the worm hole.)
How to separate fact from fiction on the theoretical fungal epidemic in the hit TV show, The Last of Us.
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